Our picks for Best Ireland Guidebooks – 2018

After reviewing 12 general travel guidebooks on Ireland from publishers that included Insights Guides, Moon Guides, Fodor’s, Frommers, Lonely Planet, National Geographic, DK Eyewitness, Michelin and Rick Steves our team has come up with our Top 3 General Guidebooks and our #1 pick for specialty guidebooks for 2018.

INVEST IN A GOOD GUIDEBOOK – If you think about how much a guidebook costs- $20-$25, that’s the cost of a nice lunch in Ireland. One guidebook can make such a difference in planning your tour and enriching the experience once you’re at a sight. Do yourself a favor and pick up a guidebook or two before you take your trip. We’ve also got links for Books to read before you go to Ireland and Best recommendations for maps and apps.

Top 3 Ireland Guidebooks for 2018

#1 Rick Steves Ireland 2018Rick is still our #1 choice and it’s not surprising that he is the #1 guidebook author in the world. His Ireland guide is the #2 best-selling guide on Ireland listed by Amazon (#1 is Lonely Planet’s 2018 guide – our #2). We like Rick’s Ireland guide because it’s the best book about general Ireland stuff with in-depth information on the sites covered. Because Rick Steves is a historian, his commentary on sites that he does cover is so thorough and rich, which makes the visiting experience so much more meaningful. His commentary on Dingle alone is worth the price of the book. He writes as if he is right there with the visitor, leading and guiding the tour. He also offers excellent commentary on the Burren, Galway and a near 40-page chapter on Irish history, language, and slang. All of Rick’s guidebooks are updated every single year.

Another perk of this book is that there is a pull-out map in the back. Several guidebooks have maps included but this book has the country map on one side and then a blow-up of 5 cities including Galway, Dublin, Belfast, Derry and Dingle AND the map can be used while still attached to the book, so it can be kept with the guidebook and not lost.

What we don’t like is that if Rick doesn’t like the site, he doesn’t include it. So you may want to look up a particular site and find that it’s not included. But the quality of what he does include is too good to not have the book. So a second guidebook that more like an encyclopedia (covers almost all of the sites) is needed. Which is why we recommend the next two books from Frommers and Lonely Planet.

Rick Steves Ireland 2018 is worth the $23.99 retail price just for the commentary on Dingle, Galway, Belfast and the Burren, which is no wonder it is rated #1 in Amazon’s travel books on Ireland for general interest. It’s also rated (today 3/25/18) as #479 in ALL books listed on Amazon (estimated to be in the millions). If you follow the consumer, this is the book people are buying.

#2 Lonely Planet’s Ireland Guide
Personally, I love Lonely Planet’s publications and love Fionn Davenport (one of their Ireland writers) even more. This guide is included in our Top 3 not because it’s more comprehensive than any other guide, but because of the uncluttered, organized and casual layout Lonely Planet guides offer. Their books are simple and easy to use. This book also features a Top 21 site list and a First Time in Ireland section, maps, suggested itineraries and a section on The Great Outdoors. In years past, Fionn Davenport offered such a unique, casual style – a great storyteller. Though the editors have tightened up on his entertaining, casual commentary, Fionn’s style still shines through. This is still the first guidebook I reach for when looking up sites in Ireland.

#3 Frommer’s Guide to Ireland 2018
Before this year, we weren’t big fans of Frommer’s. But they’ve outdone themselves with this year’s guide to Ireland. There’s great information about the country, the culture and what to expect as well as a comprehensive listing of most interesting general sites throughout Ireland and Northern Ireland. It’s both comprehensive and diverse with suggested itineraries, maps and a whole section with the “Best of…” lists including Best Castle, Best Natural Wonders, Best Literary sites and Best Museums. This guidebook has serious “personal” appeal. It seems they’ve written it in a “peer perspective” rather than an authoritative perspective. It’s what people want these days .. the personal recommendation of peers. The book also has a compact, tear-out map that has a “town key” so you can easily locate the region of most towns. This would be our #2 recommendation for a comprehensive (all inclusive guide) to Ireland.

#1 Specialty Guidebook – Thin Places Focus

#1 Specialty Guide – Sacred Ireland, by Cary Meehan (out of print – but available on Amazon from Used book dealers – pricey but worth it)
It’s not often that we highly recommend an out of print book, but this year a buyer can at least obtain a used copy from book dealers out there. Even though the copies run $60 and above, this is the best resource for thin places and sacred sites of high energy. Last year there were none to be had. If you can snag a readable copy of this for under $100, do it. It reads like a guidebook with the sites grouped in counties and provinces with a map for each county showing the approximate location of the sacred sites. Even the smallest stone circles, standing stones, and holy wells are mentioned. It was in this book that we found The Giant’s Ring in Belfast (not mentioned in any guidebooks I’ve seen), and it’s an amazing site – a large dolmen set into an earth-work ring that now serves as a public park just outside the city center. The majority of the sacred sites and megaliths in this book are not listed in any guidebooks or on maps. It would take someone years to pull together a list like this. Cary Meehan also writes from a mystical perspective so those seeking the thin places will greatly appreciate her commentary and includes directions (I never depend on these, but they’re a good estimation). If you love thin places, this guidebook is a gold mine. Grab a copy while you can.

Honorable Mention

Ireland Travel 101 by Pat PrestonIf you ever wanted to pick the brain of an expert on travel to Ireland, you’ll enjoy this book by Pat Preston. For years she worked for the Irish Tourist Board and later had her own tour operation bringing visitors from America to Ireland. Sadly, Pat has passed away, but she left a worthy legacy in this guidebook. She begins the book with all the tips and information people want to know – how electricity works, how to get around, how to plan your trip, what to take… then she highlights various regions offering her personal recommendations for attractions, accommodations and food based on years of experience. I love the sections “If You Have More Time” as options for attractions and sites that are somewhat off the radar. I could do a whole trip with just those recommendations. A very worthy book to have in any travel library.

Ireland from the Mysterious World series, by Ian Middleton
This book is similar to Cary Meehan’s Sacred Ireland in that his lists megaliths and places of mystery. Ian Middleton is a great historian and has laid out the book well. There are also color photographs of the sites which are fabulous. The sites are laid out according to counties so it’s easy to pick add on sites in an area based on what the inventory is. This book offers a good inventory of mystical places. Where Cary Meehan focuses on the mystical nature of a site, Ian Middleton (in this book) focuses on the site’s connection to Ireland’s legendary past.

Biggest Guidebook Dud

Rick Steves’ Snapshot – Northern IrelandThough we love Rick Steves, we’re rating his Snapshot of Northern Ireland as a Guidebook DUD not because it’s content isn’t valuable, but because the title is misleading. Rick’s “snapshot” books are merely sections lifted out of the full guidebook so people who only want a small portion can have just that piece of the book. In this case, there just isn’t enough representing this small country of Northern Ireland, and the content pretty much follows how the Irish Tourist Board markets Northern Ireland – Derry and the Antrim Coast with a little of Belfast for good measure.

There are four of six counties left out of this guidebook. It mirrors exactly what the Irish Tourist board (the Republic of Ireland) markets about Northern Ireland. There is so much more. It might have been better to do a “northern snapshot” and included Donegal and Sligo.

To be fair, the content Rick includes on the history of Northern Ireland and the difference in countries, government and currency is valuable. But one could get that same information in most guidebooks – and on Rick’s blog.